Guild Wars 2

Wooh… 400 pts… that’s a whole lot’s of point… Unlocking elites spec for all profession will be really tiring.
Doing at least 200 wvw level x 9 profession… that’s gruesome…
Other solution being to grind million of exp in the jungle of maguma… and still have to unlock all defy…

Sigh … farewell real life, farewell…

ODB.6891:

snip

Well, I think you didn’t even understand a thing of what I said. This is not an idea to make “zerk” player die, this is an idea to make other option than “zerk” also viable.

A “zerk” player with proper teamplay would take less than 300 damage per tic since there will probably be perma weakness and perma prot. This is something that all base profession can whistand without any issue.
Gradually increasing the number of tic per second would put more pressure on the party allowing healing to make the difference and retaliation to become effective.

Simply put, a full dps party should be able to whistand the pressure to up to the 6-7 minute mark while a defensive team with proper teamwork should break at the 11-12 minute mark. It also mean that a balanced team with heal, tank and dps should be able to maintain themself up to the 8-10 minute mark. And for me this would be something logical that a defensive team by investing into defensive stat is able to stay alive for a longer time while a DPS team which kill thing faster also break faster.

A timer only favor a “dps” team whatever the feature you’ll put around on the encounters, a timer will alway favor “dps” over survivability. And this will only lead to the “dps” meta that a lot of people despise so much. There will be even more “gear check, kick if not DPS gear”. This mindset is unhealthy.

I do think some cooler enrage mechanics would be welcome. I wouldn’t want it to be the case where you could just tank or mitigate whatever the mechanic is, though; the idea is to punish the players for taking so long by making it near-impossible to beat once it reaches that point.

In the end with this kind of ramp up damage, there is no team that can whistand it for an unlimited amount of time, just it would actually take “skill” to be able to survive longer instead of : “how you didn’t beat the timer? sad… Byebye, try again.”

Toolbox.9375:

I know it’s only barely related, but people keep freaking out about the “no more dodge” thing, particularly Thieves whose entire Elite mechanic is based on dodging… But has ArenaNet given SPECIFICS on how exactly they’re reducing the effectiveness of dodging for newer content? It could very well just be that large attacks will come more frequently than one can normally dodge, rather than just outright ignoring dodges altogether. .

As for enemies aggroing onto Healing Power/Toughness in tandem, I imagine that’d actually make such gear effective for those who really want to play up the Tank corner of the holy trinity.

Well, the best example of what they meant by “Dodge will be useless” is the lightning strike that occur in the boss fight of the guardian vale. You simply can’t dodge it. You have to disable it by having player on the red circle. Althought if I’m not mistaken, there will be a boss where you will want to be outside the arena when it’s aoe occur. Simply, they introduce unavoidable damage with a mean to disable them that is something different than dodge. These mechanisms force player into a mobile warfare instead of the stack, spank and dodge on wall dungeon meta.

On topic, GW2 is different of classic mmo game by the fact that you’re supposed to be able to fill each and every “role” without any regard on your profession. Having healing power will most likely allow you to effectively tank more than a toughness tank. So, yeah, it would be usefull if healing power was the “agro” stat but, on the other hand, it would make toughness totally useless.

Mobius.7041:

I disagree, especially because we already pretty much use Dagger only with every Necro PvE build, there’s no diversity. Why does Dagger have to be useful for Reaper in terms of raw dps? Can’t it be just a PvP Weapon or the best choice for every other Necro build? It’s like creating a Berserker Warrior and trying to play a Condition build with Torch, but Rifle with Condition Damage does more damage, so you have to use rifle most of the times because it’s better, overshadowing the unique aspect of the Torch. That was just a random example, but you get the idea. “But other weapon does not eclipse the Greatsword” Dagger does eclipse Greatsword in terms of dps on targets with more than 50% hp, you pretty much use Greatsword to spam Gravedigger after the 50% mark and that’s about it. Dagger is already a dominant weapon and I don’t want that for Reaper, it really dumbs down the experience of the specialization.

That’s no sense…
Reaper, if anything, is the master of chill not the master of DPS. Beside, you mainly use Dagger for LF generation and then play with RS.

Would you deny to the Berserker to use longbow or sword off hand because they are condi weapon and it step on the toes of the torch?

Would you deny the elementalist to use any other OH weapon than the War horn should be the best weapon to gain the aura that tempest support so much? (note that there is not even a skill that create an aura on the war horn)

Would you deny the possibility to the dragon hunter to be effective with any other weapon than the longbow?

If you see daredevil playing sword or dagger, will you say that they cheat or whatever?

etc.

The weapon that the elite spec gain don’t define these spec, they support the theme of these spec. And the theme of the Reaper is chill, which is supported by the chill on auto attack 3rd, the chill on grasping darkness and the possibility to add chill on blind on nightfall.

Mobius.7041:

I’m not saying you should only use Greatsword ever in very situation, but the other weapons should not eclipse Greatsword. Do you want a speed increase? Switch to Warhorn. Do you need to remove a boon? Switch to Focus. Do you need an Immobalize and some hp back? Switch to Dagger. Those are few examples, but Greatsword should be the main weapon for Reaper, not Dagger.

But other weapon does not eclipse the Greatsword.
What are the strenght of the greatsword? A pull (count as a hard CC) (grasping darkness), an aoe blind (nightfall), a fast way to put a lot of vulnerability in a split second (Death spiral), big numbers on a foe that is under 50% HP (Gravedigger) and an AA that apply chill.

What are the strenght of the dagger? hard hitting AA, fast LF generation, a clumsy heal (Life siphon) and a once in a lifetime root (dark pact).

The greatsword do not need to be the weapon that does the most DPS for the whole fight. Doing the most DPS does not mean “being the main weapon of…”.

I’ll probably repeat myself but :

The idea of corrupting self is not bad in itself and there could be ton of way to exploit it. Simply the way the GW2 necromancer deal with this idea is bad. Now, if they introduce some trait that really take advantage of the self inflicted condition by granting something to the necromancer in exchange for it’s blood and tears, then MoC would actually become valuable in it’s actual shape.

Let’s just imagine some possible tweeks on existing trait :
Spitful renewal : When you corrupt yourself or draw a condition from an allie, you heal yourself for a low amount (no ICD)

Parasitic contagion : In addition to it’s current effect, whenever you corrupt yourself or draw a condition, copy one of the condition on you to foes around you.

Unholy martyr : Make it so you gain life force when you draw a condition on you as well as when you corrupt yourself.

Just this. It wouldn’t be a lot but it would be more than enough to make self corruption valuable. Unholy martyr would become a valuable trait granting this hard to get life force which almost all condi spec starve so much for. Parasitic contagion would feel like something “contagious” and would finally gain some interest for players. Spitful renewal may be a bit to much of a trade of since power spec would lose a cleanse tool. But overall, trait like these would benefit to the profession and would make MoC valuable without breaking the game or the sacred necromancer’s thematic. Beside, just introducing this kind of mechanic open a lot of possibility for futur elite spec.

Edit : changed Unholy sanctuary to Unholy martyr

Maybe it was just me but the main reason I used dagger wasn’t dps but LF generation…

Beside, you play reaper for more reason than just the greatsword. what would be the point of the weapon swap if you were to use only GS when you play reaper? Do you think that scepter, axe and staff fit better the Reaper thematic?

Dagger could easily be just a PvP weapon for Reaper, no need to make it the best for PvE. If that happens, I might drop the entire class all together, I can’t see myself playing Reaper with a Dagger, even if it’s only for half of the fight, let the other Necro builds use it.

What do you suggest here? Removing dagger from the reaper weapon? Nerfing dagger so it’s damage are ridiculously low, nerfin at the same time the core necromancer?

Dagger is part of the necromancer as well as Reaper is part of the necromancer. If you don’t like dagger, just don’t use it. Other players will play according to their own preference.

Until then I’ve been working on readying a guild on GW2 dedicated to finding kindred souls who want to run stuff “old school” for the laid-back fun and enjoyment of the game.

1.5 year ago you could have count me on for that. But now, just the though to do a dungeon path or fractal bore me to no end. I welcome GW2:HoT mainly because there will be new thing to see, discover and (most of all) explore. I can’t wait for all the exploration of new maps that will await me. While the work on fractal may fit the taste of a part of the community, still, this will be the same old fractal to do over and over and over again and this is absolutely not exciting.

The concept is pretty interesting but there is a bunch of skills that feel out of place like Relinquish and abandon all hope. One of the key principle of the necromancer (core and elite) is that this profession do not prevent hit from being taken.

In this regard I feel that your Brand skill may open something really interesting by making them have a more uniform effect.
1- brand can only be apply on self.
2- brand effect happen when hit and not on hit.

This 2 thing may feel restricting but it’s somewhat of a necessity to avoid overlapping effect and/or unbalanced spike.

Zania.8461:

With that aside, base necro needs a buff. Perhaps that way ANet would not need to try balancing a whole class by using elite spec.

^this and always this…

Nyth.3492:

Picking up GS might give you some nice bursty damage, but you’ll lose so much more. I don’t think i’ve seen the top PvP necro’s play with GS for very long in sPvP.

But that’s exactly why I think it’s unhealthy. You sure lose a lot but what the guy in front of you see is only your instant damage and it’s a certainty, it’s bound to create a montain of thread saying : “Nerf Reaper! OP damage! look at my log 30k in 2 hit!”

It won’t become “meta” but it’s an obvious pain in the back in 1-2 month from now. So yeah, I’m already saying how i’d prefer them to balance it so it doesn’t ruin everything and as a bonus I gain some QoL change.

Well, Decimate defense is somewhat ok.

Honestly, I feel that Gravedigger is the real threat to the overall balance of the reaper. So simply, let it do less instant damage but make it faster in compensation so that the overall damage per second end up being the same. It wouldn’t one shot foes anymore and the “above 50%” damage per second would definitely goes down but a faster gravedigger would allow more room to use active defense when used on foe under 50%.

I’m willing to sacrifice some gravedigger DPS on foes above 50% health point for QoL and an healthier PvP.

It’s probably to late at this point of the developpement but I’d like to propose an alternative to the timer mechanism. (note that I’m refering to the guardian vale fight in this post simply because that’s the sample that we’ve been shown)

The guardian vale gave us interesting combat mechanism with 4 source of damage.
- the boss attacks
- the red sphere periodic damage
- the lightning strick mechanism
- the boss “decay aura”

My proposition here is simply to remove the “timer” in favor of a bit more work on the “decay aura”. In short, I think that this is the perfect mechanism to gradually increase the pressure on the players instead of the sudden switch to enrage mode.
I’ll just assume random value as exemple here. Let’s say that the “decay aura” do 1k damage per second to all naked (without any passive mitigation) player in range. My suggestion would be to gradually increase the speed at which it deliver it’s damage so that it roughly deliver 1 additional hit per second every 4 minutes. This damage would be considered as direct damage and, per se, contribute to proc the retaliation effect.

What would it do?
Simply, it would make “passive” defence a thing.

Pro :
- Armor and toughness grant a natural damage mitigation that will no count as something important.
- Trait reducing damage by a set percentage would be more than show.
- Protection uptime become strategically really important.
- Retaliation proc faster as time pass and eventually become a valuable asset for the group dps.
- Healing become something really valuable as it’s an important mean to support the pressure.
- Weakness could affect it.

Cons :
- It would make aegis or pretty much every “on block” skill less and less effective as a survival tool.
- I wonder if making it a direct damage thing wouldn’t impact negatively the viability of “pets” issued from profession’s skills (as well as the ranger’s pet).

But overall, I think it could be an healthier mechanism for build and strategy diversity than the boring “enrage mode” that every mmo use again and again.

I’m sorry Heithinn but either you take what I said the wrong way or your insight of the actual meta is pretty bad.

There is already room for controle/support/DPS in the actual meta. In fact it’s all about controle and support and let’s ride on the remaining DPS we can do. What do you do in an encounter against a boss?

1- you freeze him : Controle
2- you build strenght with your allies via stacking might and fury : Support
3- you burn the boss with DPS.

I know it’s not satisfying from a traditionnal point of view but all roles are here and pushed to their limit due to the fact that we are all used to these dungeon that we’ve been runing for 3 years.

What you ask would change almost nothing of this, it may even make thing worse by forcing people into an even stricter group composition : “LFG <insert dungeon path> need thief or kick”.

At release we were mostly doing every trash pack and their grandma when doing a dungeon. Were they to hard or to easy? They were balanced from what I recall. But trash are like boss they have tell, it’s easy to understand them and to act in a way that you counter them. Do they need to do more damage? No, more damage would mean that a more “defensive” party won’t make it.

One other thing. 1-3 gold may seem low but most of dungeon runner do 5-6 path/hour. Which mean that they effectly gain at least 10 gold/hour. Outside of the boring chest farm of SW there is no better way to make gold.

And there is way more than following a commander in open PvE, there is plenty of content that aren’t done anymore but… that’s something that they seem to try to fix with HoT. The reward for the dungeon content (token and armor/weapon) are balanced and don’t need an upgrade.

Overall, I understand why you are upset against the way dungeon are today but, they are like this because they’ve been run and run and run over and over again. Players discovered the most efficient way to do them and it’s also players that reject less efficient way to do them. Their content is designed to be done with whatever you want to play and is balanced around that. The only issue is that players tend to reject what is not optimal. Is this possible to do arah with a healer/tank/DPS team? Yeah, I’ve done it countless time in the first year of the game. At this time, there was no “exploit” known where you force lupicus into the wall (well there were bug also… Oh god… facepalm…).

Nothing really change in the mechanisms, just Players discovered all the trick that we are using right know, establishing optimal strategy that we’ve ran for so long that we simply forget that these are strategy.

it’s mostly serious for the encounter that we could see . Simply because it give me range sustain damage, self sustain/boon, mobility, enough hard CC and burst sustain for me and allies to recover in the lightning area. Other build may be able to do the same thing but I think it would be one of the most effective for this encounter and this role.

Daniel Handler.4816:

Dadnir.5038:

Daniel Handler.4816:

Tanking on one boss is by highest toughness so ele can’t pull that off. I’ll have to review the raid footage again, but I think the boss moves too much for staff or dagger to be useful, especially if they up the difficulty.

You know that toughness mostly come from gear and trait. Naked (or even in full armor), all profession have the same toughness. Beside, if you look closely at the video made, you’ll see that the tank only nee to move when he got the teleport things under it’s feet. And he don’t need to move much. Overall, you can put your lava font to cover the movement of the kited boss.

You are correct, I was conflating armor and toughness.

What build would you personally fun for a raid?

I’ll probably test a S/D fresh air build on the raid when HoT will go live. (well that’s at least the choice I come up with for the boss we could try in the BWE3). I’m not sure I’ll use tempest in this encounter thought. I’ll probably play something that look like this :

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQJArYnMICdOglNA2NA8RghGAjyBFhBpEIDAfwKLcDTkA-TBBXgAA7PK/C1D0r+zjSQA-e

Note that some of the utilities skill are just place holder.

I have the strange feeling that you are frustrated by the guardian’s mobility.

Overall, I’m not sure you change this much the way you play a guard, There is a bunch of trait that are OP (especially combined with the core profession) and I don’t think that “evade” skills fit the guardian global design.

Some last last thing. Safeguard of courage is totally OP. There is no trait for sword OH. Break the Ice is redundant as a trait. Shattering Purification is a death sentence with no tell. Valiant charge need some work, it’s a weapon skill not a mantra (remove super speed, make it a charge or better, make it a double skill which would block an attack and riposte on mele hit, applying chill and weakness or grant superspeed on skill use). Something like this :

#4: 1 valiant riposte :
- for 2 second block incoming attack. If a mele attack is blocked it end and you hit your foe for x damage and apply chill and weakness
→ 2 Valiant charge :
- stop blocking attacks, you gain x second of superspeed and x second of quickness.

Daniel Handler.4816:

Tanking on one boss is by highest toughness so ele can’t pull that off. I’ll have to review the raid footage again, but I think the boss moves too much for staff or dagger to be useful, especially if they up the difficulty.

You know that toughness mostly come from gear and trait. Naked (or even in full armor), all profession have the same toughness. Beside, if you look closely at the video made, you’ll see that the tank only nee to move when he got the teleport things under it’s feet. And he don’t need to move much. Overall, you can put your lava font to cover the movement of the kited boss.

1- Take a thieve or an engi… done, all trash mob are skipped.

2- I don’t think you played enough dungeon right now. The reason why the zerk meta is this proeminent is because we all know the tells of each and every boss out there. The zerk meta isn’t here to take any hit but to avoid all of them if possible and the best way to do it is to burn down the boss before you run out of dodge.

3- ATM, there is no need to know wha have the agro. But most of the time the guy who will have the agro will be the first to hit the mob (be it at the begining of the fight or after a hard CC. Note that any hard CC reset the agro)

4- I don’t think the 3 previous change make the dungeon less exploitable. ATM the dungeon give to much money (let’s admit it), It’s a good decision to keep the dungeon as token provider and reduce the money you make from them. It’s also because it’s so simple to make money from dungeon that the TP price are this high. Simply, the price are what they because gold is overflowing from dungeon ATM.

5- Open PvE grant you mostly rare gear. Dungeon are here for easy exotic gear. Fractal for ascended trinket. raid will be here for ascended armor/weapon. Gear progression that follow the content difficulty. Seem more logical than what you propose.

6- Taunt is a hard CC in guild wars 2, not something you use for agro management. You understand that your runeset destroy any PvP (or WvW) balance, right?

7- A Hard mode for dungeon is something that a lot of us ask for but most likely it won’t happen. And the solo thing is something that is already possible for almost all dungeon path. I suggest that you try to search for dungeon solo video on youtube. You’ll see that there is plenty of video.

8- there is already consumbale that grant damage/defense/regen at the trading post. Dungeon consumable are mainly potion that provide a better efficiency against a kind of opponent and these potions are part of the artificer job. Do you simply suggest that the remove these recipe to sell the consumable on the TP? Will the 2 consumable stack in intensity?

The actual elementalist is not meta for show. There are plenty of tools that make it meta beside it’s DPS. Conjure, ability to blast, usefull combo field, boon provider, mobility… etc. And Tempest only add more to these. What we could see in the raid sample was primarily that healing is secondary and tanking marginal.

There is a lot of elementalist’s build possibilities for raids :
- The classic staff build which will be as effective as it is right now if you got a good agro manager (tank).
- Probably a staff healer with a build mostly focused on healing but in DPS gear.
- A Dagger melee bruiser that could even tank since the boss damage are negligible. Be it tempest or pure elementalist there is plenty of possibilities.
- A mobile scepter damager can be done as well.

Note that for both dagger and scepter there is a still a lot of potential for sustain damage with fresh air. I know that it’s seen as a burst tool for PvP, but it’s also a really good sustain damage tool in PvE. With a pur elementalist, you’ll make full use of your attunment rotation while with a tempest, you’ll take advantage of the air overload shortened cool down.

Zetsumei.4975:

Dadnir.5038:

Bhawb.7408:

Not denying that it is bad, but it is a PvE only trait regardless. If it needs to be replaced that’s a side issue.

Really strange that you see a condition trait as a PvE trait. If anything parasitic contagion is a WvW trait but not a PvE trait.

Well not really because you have group condi clear flying everywhere.

Parasitic contagion works best when there are a large number of targets who dont fight back much or cleanse themselves, it isnt effective in current pve encounters because condi dmg is lower than power and current pve doesnt really require you to have sustain.

Which does not change the fact that it’s not a trait that is more usefull for PvE than it is for PvP. My point was more that you’ll have more material to use it in WvW than in any other game mode and it’s mainly due to the fact that player vs player encounter a favourable to condition and almost passive healing while PvE is more like swim or sink but don’t take any hit.

Beside, nothing showed in the last BWE give more importance for this trait in PvE. So current or not the value for PvE is the same as the value for PvP : 0. Don’t mind me but it’s kinda boring to see people saying : Wait, soon they will design PvE to make the necromancer’s trait awesome. They simply won’t, they will keep their game balanced for the majority of the professions with a PvP priority in their mind.

The issue with parasitic contagion is that we primarily see it as a sustain healing trait while it’s strenght lie in it’s ability to burst heal ourselves via boon corruption or epidemic.

Bhawb.7408:

Not denying that it is bad, but it is a PvE only trait regardless. If it needs to be replaced that’s a side issue.

Really strange that you see a condition trait as a PvE trait. If anything parasitic contagion is a WvW trait but not a PvE trait.

From what we could see healing wasn’t something that was primary needed in the sample of raid. The best healing that any profession could do was to enter the lightning area before the lightning kill everyone.

The elementalist as well as the tempest are, in this regard, in a good place since you can ponctually support (heal) your party whatever build you take. The real thing you gotta care is that you should not waste your time with healing gear so that your party don’t lose the necessary DPS to finish the encounter.

Swagger.1459:

1- option to stow pets
2- all melee damage is increased by 30%
3- sword does not root you
4- perma ca form
5- traits reshuffle to make sense
6- pets grow up and serve as mounts

Seem legit…

From the look of it at the BWE3, The mastery track is mostly focus on singularity and less on agony. So it feel more likely that Bitoku Kishi is right for what will happen to the agony resistance requirement while the singularity will probably stack at high level fractal for more hindrance.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Pact_Tyria_mastery_track

well… you know, it’s been already years that players solo the GW2 dungeons. Sur it may be faster to do them in a party but soloing them is already possible. I mean did you even search for video of people soloing some dungeon path?

It would be a shame that Anet nerf them to achieve a goal which is already possible.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Does anyone else think if the current active skills were removed but they could move when traited, that Spirits would be in a decent place again? I’m starting to think they couId be. It would give us the same capability as Herald at least.

The spirit would need to be something undamageable like banner as well. But overall, it would be the healthiest solution for the spirits.

They can still keep the spirit active skills effect for futur elite spec skill effect.

NB : Thought would have some issue with the water spirit and the nature spirit.

That’s not really the kind of thing that this raid sample show us but we can hope I guess.

Vampiric aura have the advantage to be especially effective with fast hiting skills like Druid staff AA, mesmer GS AA or Ele air scepter AA. Though the damage are abysmal but the healing value are… well… not as bad as it may be I guess…

Anchoku.8142:

Rangers certainly will not be unwanted. I just wish Necro had group support so desirable. Transfusion and spamming 2 on greatsword is all i can think of atm. Chill will be ignored in PvE and the first raid does not need piles of AoE soft CC or cleave.

I’d say that it’s up to the behavior of the rangers. But yeah they get a lot of utilities with HoT and I personnally think that their greatest buff is the breakbar itself since they finally won’t be a bother anymore with their knockback fetish.

You forgot vampiric aura, it’s not much but it’s still something “desirable”.

Silverkey.2078:

• druids cannot leave astral form and keep the energy they had left: they start from 0
• druids cannot use this “energy pool” as a secondary life, though of course the amount of healing makes up for it… a lot
• druids can in principle use any weapon to build astral force, but in practice only one works. Oh wait, necro too
• druids cannot give much damage while in astral form
• druids can use their utilities while in astral form (grrrr)
• druids can receive healing while in astral form (grrrr)

so quite different. But druids and necro could benefit from each other’s mechanics

• no incoming healing in death shroud is hard (and maybe unfair) for necros
• not having the possibility to use astral form for 1 or 2 skills only and pop out of it after + having most astra skills with very similar function (i.e. healing) means astral form is spammy as kitten. I had high hopes but it ended up being super boring to play.

I’d say that with the change announced, The avatar is one or 2 step closer to the shroud :

Irenio CalmonHuang.2048:

• Celestial Avatar Form: Entering this form now has a 10s CD. Charging of Astral force by healing has been reduced by 40%. Charging of Astral force by outgoing strikes has been increased by 200%. You now retain half your current astral force if you decide to break form early.

Well wishes,
~Irenio

- Shroud base cool down : 10s -> avatar CD 10s.
- Keep half of the astral force if breaking avatar early.
- almost easier to build astral force than life force…

I’d still say that it’s way to close of a shroud and way to far of the core ranger mechanic for the good of the game.

Not that I really care of the name of the guy but you should blur it on your screenshot to avoid your thread being close.

What’s amazing is that it’s been here since the release of trapper’s runes. Ranger’s had their abuse of these runes and now a ranger is killed by them and urge to nerf thiefs specifically.

Nonsense…

Now, there is 2 kind of balance answer :
- add back a DD damaging component part to the thief traps. (Free damage, the OP could see this as an injust buff to the hated thief)
- nerf the trappers rune in some kind of way. (No way that would be a direct nerf to the ranger for sure)

None of these would make a big difference in the end but maybe we could call this “balanced”?

Everything have been already told.

The Reaper give new possibilities to the necromancer but don’t cover what the current Necromancer lack when it come to teamfight. Neither the Reaper nor the Necromancer will be the best at something (except boon corruption).

Note that this statement is done based on revealed content from BWEs. Still the reaper spec is incredibly pleasant and effective to play against open PvE mobs from the HoT maps and RS is hundred time better at everything than DS (Except range attacking ).

Thaddeus.4891:

Dadnir.5038:

Zypher.7609:

Or since it takes about a month to develop each weapon, it is a sign that their development is better spent other places. Rather than underwater weapons that makes up maybe 3-5% of the game content.

Don’t mind me but I think this argument is a bit flawed. Why?
Look at how many black lion weapon they have created… designing new weapon clearly don’t take a month.
The staff skin with the crow was leaked 2 year ago (at least)…
Underwater combat should definitely have it’s hours of glory. None ever said that there wouldn’t be any more underwater content. (Only PvPer hate it to the point that they achieve a withdrawal of a whole PvP map)

Well you can doudt about anything you want, but they said that it take them one month to create one legendary weapons from scratch. This isn’t just the skin, but also the aura, the footprints, skills animations. It also include the three precursors (yes now it’s 3), the collections, the quests, the trophies, etc.

Anyway, it’s not that point. Whatever the amount of time they need to create new legendary, it still cost resources to create new legendary. Underwater combat was always a laughable matter in video game in general, not just for GW2. It make total sense to not put resource into developing new skin for that content.

Would I be happy if underwater combat was good and there was some new underwater content and skin? You bet I would. But I prefer that they put that time on other stuff tbh.

Well, It’s my right to doubt
But honestly, just look at the axe. It’s technically a basic axe with twilight animation (Ok it’s a bit more blue than dark but that’s not a huge difference)

Dungeons will still drop things as well as they will still have some gold, they will just have much less gold.

From what I understand, only the amount of gold rewarded will be nerfed.

Eight Samurai.6840:

Mitch.4781:

Vox Hollow.2736:

I have got to give this guy some credit.

However you may feel about the change itself, this is actually pretty solid community interaction.

But it’s not a solid answer. The question is WHY do this? If Dungeons were infact, very popular, why try to force players to other parts of the game? Whn not actually put resources into new dungeons. So much for “play your way”.

The “community interaction” you speak of is basically:

We are doing this, just cos…..

BINGO! And if the dev, John Smith was smart enough he would have explained why.

But he said why. Maybe not clearly enough but he said it. They are balancing the player’s gold income so that dungeon ain’t anymore the best place to make gold. Just one place out of all the possible place.

Which probably mean that you will be able to do as much gold out of a fractal than you will do out of a dungeon.

They are only trying to spread player into the whole game instead of concentrating them in one place : the dungeons.

As someone that have been bored by dungeon and fractal since more than a year, I don’t welcome this solution, but I feel it’s a fair solution. It was way to easy to make gold out of the dungeons.

Zypher.7609:

Or since it takes about a month to develop each weapon, it is a sign that their development is better spent other places. Rather than underwater weapons that makes up maybe 3-5% of the game content.

Don’t mind me but I think this argument is a bit flawed. Why?
Look at how many black lion weapon they have created… designing new weapon clearly don’t take a month.
The staff skin with the crow was leaked 2 year ago (at least)…
Underwater combat should definitely have it’s hours of glory. None ever said that there wouldn’t be any more underwater content. (Only PvPer hate it to the point that they achieve a withdrawal of a whole PvP map)

And I thought that a DPS meter was only usefull to watch your DPS in order to not take agro on boss.
Well if anything the only number that really matter for me would be the agro queue on the boss. With this you know who would take the agro on boss if the tank fall. So I’d be against a DPS meter without a proper agro-meter

Ganathar.4956:

deSade.9437:

T Eles will always be desired unless they get hit by the nerfbat at least 2 more times – they got everything,

“Eles have everything”.

This is the most common profession myth in the game.

Sure that you lose your maximum staff effectivness on moving foes. But shall I recall you that staff elementalist weren’t wanted before the aknowledgement of the PS warrior? At that time people asked you to play D/F or D/D (even S/D sometime).

From my point of view, this raid sample favour S/x ele/tempest.
A good old fresh air S/D ele/tempest build should be pretty interesting with a proper rotation. (It would provide both damage and support)
A D/D or D/Wh fresh air melee build could also be a pretty good. I don’t know how hard air overload hit with 25 might/25 vuln but it shouldn’t be shabby and on a low cool down due to fresh air, that’s one hell of an option.
Staff ele as healing support option also have their place out there.

On the subject of the ele being squishy. The boss himself wasn’t really doing any damage at all. The only things that were threatening were the red sphere and the lightning field thingy. Not to say that the elementalist still have a large access to protection and a fresh air rotation put you into water almost every 10 second which should be more than enough to keep even the squishiest elementalist alive in this raid sample that we’ve tested.

Well, I am not a berserker speed runner (To be exact I was 1.5 year ago but my interrest for dungeon droped since then).

But, and you should admit it, the necromancer due to it’s limitation can’t compete in any kind of support with other classes. It would be a relief if BiP was able to at least maintain it’s 8 might stack but it doesn’t. Beside every profession can tank, that’s not an issue, it’s a matter of gameplay and build. For example, It may be an heresy for some people but you could easily tank with a thief, you only need a sword/pistol setup and proper trait.

The necromancer is just crippled by to much things in PvE to be desired. And what he lack the most is some meaningfull support. I’d love to grant siphon to my teammate but… it’s 42 hp/hit… it’s meaningless in PvE. I’d love to debuff our foes but the whole breakbar thing make it meaningless outside of very small window during the fight. I’d love to blind my ennemy to prevent them from damaging my allie but that’s view as to strong (outside the fact that a thief would do a better job without breaking a sweat).

What I tried to explain is that all the strenght of the necromancer are PvP strenght. I respect that and I think that the dev do a good job in this area. But, the necromancer can’t achieve the same level of effectivness of the other profession in an environment that simply ignore it’s strong point. It’s not a misconception on how the reaper can work, it’s just realism. The necromancer simply lag behind other profession due to the fact that it’s strenght lie in an area that does not fit PvE. Your party as a whole lose some effectivness in PvE when taking a necromancer as they are right now.

Dragon Ruler X.8512:

Dadnir.5038:

PvE Usefulness
Entirely useful. This class can now match the DPS of other Berserker speed run classes with higher sustain. The more this class gets surrounded – the stronger it becomes.

Sadly, Organized PvE content is more about what you bring to the party outside of your DPS than just DPS. Dagger auto attack have always been pretty good. I think the reaper/necromancer need more support (It’s always been the case), today it’s still stand in the same place as it always have : Just a DPS.

There is certainly a fair amount of support options available depending on perspective. I might suggest looking into Trooper (Soldier) Runes and Shouts or how well you can Blind foes, transform boons into condi’s or condi’s into boons, provide leeching for your party, etc.

Do you even PvE? (since I clearly comment on PvE)

Did you tried the raid? None of the boss/trash applied any condi. The only boon to remove was a prot stack, leeching provided to your party amount to a 2 digit number to take down something that probably have million life point. Blind soft condition does nothing.
The only usefull support you provide is well of blood every 34 second.

The necromancer have tools that are well tune for PvP situation but these tools fall short as soon as you enter into PvE situation.

PvP si full of boon/conditions, foes don’t have gigantic health pool, damage are balanced between each profession and player aren’t immune to soft condition. And the necromancer’s tools take full advantage of that. The necromancer is balanced around the fact that he can send back condition or corrupt boons.

PvE is the exact opposite. The necromancer’s support face against monstruous health pool, it’s support via condition is negated by the mobs, mobs don’t survive thanks to boons nor do they apply enough condition to waste some utility/weapon to send them back.

The necromancer in PvE is like a thirsty man in the desert and it’s been like this since ages.

All of these profession/specializations have their pro and cons.
- Revenant :
A well tuned profession with a pretty awesome dynamic. Thought, not all the legends are as fun to use. If you enjoy easy support and straight forward gameplay, this profession is for you.

- Reaper :
A gruesome specialization that set the necromancer into a mele specialist. If you do not want to bother with supporting other and want to still hit like a truck, it’s for you.

- Druid :
Your pet bred your ranger with a necromancer and you’ve became a Druid. Direct non lasting support and CC are your thing? If it is then you’ll enjoy the Druid.

HardRider.2980:

All I see is a LOT of downtime between attacks/ damage. A LOT of wasted time.

Reaper can basically do constant dps 24/7… out side of RS – gs skills and other skills.. bk into reaper and constant dps. Our AA Attack does 3 stacks of burning. 1500-3k on none condi build.. condi build 5-8k easy and then there’s the might and vul stacking the poison the whirl finishing and leaps

I got a hard time understanding you… Are you saying that a non condi build do 1.5-3k damage with dhumfire burn? and that on a condi build you’ll do 5-8k with the burn condition?

If it’s the case I must be terribly bad because In sinister I believe that I’m not able to do more than 3k burn.

Ele will always have their place in raid, they provide enough support to be always welcome and their DPS have never been bad. The Ele weapon in the first encounter are :
- Water, fire field/blast (always useful)
- aura/overload
- Mobility
- DPS

Thieves are in a similar place except that it’s area is more centered around sheer DPS, controle and mobility. Its main weapon are :
- blast finisher
- mobility
- heavy controle
- DD damage
- Condition burst

I think the main reason you haven’t seen a lot of thieves/ele in raid is that at first you need to learn the mechanisms and peeps think of these profession as “squishy”. Beside devs scared everyone saying things like “It will be the end of the metazerk” or “You’ll need passive defense” while in fact you need as much dps as possible and your best defense lie in being quick to rally the lightning aoe.

NB: people were also eager to use some profession with a new flavor like druid/reaper while tempest/daredevil are really close to their core profession.

Name : Evoker
New weapon : Hammer
Mechanic : Pet used affect the Evoker. The evoker don’t have access to the ranger’s pet, he summon primitive pets from the mist.

New pet :
- Fire hound : a fierce beast imbuing it’s master with the power of the sun. While the F2 skill is off cool down, increased the ranger’s power by 180 and boon duration by 10% at level 80.
- Ice Imp : a cold hearted Imp imbuing it’s master with the power of Ice. While F2 skill is off cool down, increased the ranger’s precision and condition duration by 180 at level 80.
- Rock beast : a steady beast imbuing it’s master with the power of earth. While F2 is off cool down, increase the ranger’s toughness and vitality by 180 at level 80.
- Oakheart : A wise entity imbuing it’s master with the power of plants. While F2 is off cool down, increase the ranger’s condition duration and outgoing healing by 20%.

Utility : Physical skills with the ranger’s flavor.

Yeah reaper is very cool in open PvE. It’s a real pleasure to play it.

The DPS of the necro is neither terrible/bad nor OP, it’s DPS is gimmicky. Simply put, gravedigger push the necromancer’s (reaper spec) to the extrem as soon as your foe is under 50%… but that’s all. Actually, I’d say that gravedigger is an issue for PvP and something that barely keep the necromancer viable as a DD DPS in PvE.

What’s amazing is that it’s the same thing for condi spec. Our condi spec tend to make us god in PvP and barely relevant for Raid (not saying PvE because everything is fine in openworld PvE).

Still, the worst issue of the necromancer is the support he provide in PvE/raid. One forth is negated by mechanism, half is negated by the breackbar and the remaining forth is so undertuned in PvE that it make it irrelevant.
- Projectile block didn’t work on the only projectile we faced.
- Boon corruption was next to irrelevant.
- debuff were negated by the breakbar.
- Rallying allies suppose that you have a party that screw up and don’t know the mechanism. Most likely if you try this road it’s that you do not think you will win the fight.
- Siphon… They do less damage than the weakest condition. Just try killing the red guy with siphon, that ought to be a very long fight.
- I found out that only well of blood was an okay tool to support the party.

The necromancer is deseperately in need of some proper support tools. (He always have been in need of this tools).

A very cheap fix would be to make the siphon do more damage in PvE content (or just on raid mobs) and scale properly on healing power I guess. Which mean keeping the healing value as is but improving the siphon damage to do up to 4 time the current damage depending on your healing power (Just to avoid an all power effectiveness).

PvE Usefulness
Entirely useful. This class can now match the DPS of other Berserker speed run classes with higher sustain. The more this class gets surrounded – the stronger it becomes.

Sadly, Organized PvE content is more about what you bring to the party outside of your DPS than just DPS. Dagger auto attack have always been pretty good. I think the reaper/necromancer need more support (It’s always been the case), today it’s still stand in the same place as it always have : Just a DPS.

I tried as well the raid for a few attempt on a pug party.

Honestly it’s as I feared. The necro/reaper put it’s dps on the table and that’s all. What bother me the most is that we had so much trouble downing the red guy that I felt like even though I was a condi DPS, I was doing nearly nothing. Simply I wasn’t able to achieve the condi DPS that you can see Engi achieve. (Well, ther is the possibility as well that I was the only one who was runing condi…).

Otherwise, the necromancer’s debuff don’t really impact the fight (chill/weakness/cripple have an abysmal impact on the fight)
Vulnerability : It was fun to see that at phase 2 when I was solo on the red boss I could maintain my 25 vuln stack… but that’s all.
Well grant self sustain and it’s great but the only well that really help our teammate is the blood well. It’s on a long cool down for a support that would need to be put every 20 seconds.
Projectile destruction… does not work on the blue sphere at phase 3…
And lastly, like someone said, we are a bit short on boon corruption to keep up with the boon generation.

The only real thing that the necromancer put on the table is it’s resilience. So you could expect the necromancer to be taken as a “tank”. (Thought a moe altruistic profession can do it as well)

Yes, sometime it work and sometime it doesn’t. I’m more worried about the inconsistency of the effect than the damage fact. It would be good if we could have an official view on how the skill should work.

Though, most of the time it doesn’t work it feel like it’s due to land bug.